BS: Random Traces From All Over

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 30 May 08 - 04:33 PM

(And that was #400!)

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 30 May 08 - 05:18 PM

Re fuel price strikes:

In the US, industry reports are that for the past two months approximately 700 trucking companies per month have been forced to "cease operations" because cost of operations exceed what they're paid to move your food.

In one specific case, creditors got a "stop payment" order on the company credit cards, which are the only way drivers can purchase fuel, leaving about 1,000 drivers effectively stranded, up to 1,500 miles from home, with no way to get to delivery points or even to get back home.

So I'd guess one could say those thousand drivers are "on strike?"

In the US, trucking is the only way that schedules permit getting "fresh foods" to market. It cannot be done by rail with our existing systems/facilities.

Diesel fuel has been above $4.50/gallon for several months now everywhere in the US, while "consumers" p*ss & moan about $3.50 (+ a little in some places) gasoline. (That's about a 50% increase for diesel, versus around 20% increase for gasoline, over the past year. For diesel it's everywhere. There's a lot more variation in gasoline prices.)

At my last trip to the supermarket, I found several empty bins where the lettuce and brocolli had been, briefly. The "strike" is already working, but there may not be anyone to go back to work even if changes are made, with the way it's working for most here.

[I assume that personal opinions are about as random as anything that can be traced.]

John

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 30 May 08 - 05:44 PM

John:

Grim shadows of harsh reality, but random enough, I would say.


A

Oh -- in case anyone missed it on the "Was this Worth Doing" thread, here's a lovely technological fancy to offset the pain:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/05/22/scope.project/index.html

A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 30 May 08 - 07:09 PM

A professor I knew many years ago sort of "had a dream" about a much shorter tunnel to connect Boston and Washington DC for a communter train. He presented the problem of calculating the "resonant frequency" for a "train" dropped into one end of the hole and arriving at the other on a number of freshman physics exams. (it's a non-linear pendulum problem)

In the absence of friction and windage (standard quiz conditions for freshmen) it turns out that the trip from one end to the other would be expected to take about a minute or two. For extra credit you could calculate the "peak velocity" at the center of the tube, which - recollection is - was about 2,300 mph, but it might have been a little less.

His "after test" critique always discussed the "make up energy" required for friction and windage, improvements possible by using a "constant slope" instead of straight-line hole for the tunnel, and a few other "practical bits."

We never did figure out for sure whether he really believed the tunnel might someday be "bored" to his specifications, although many students were, especially by the crigique.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 30 May 08 - 11:10 PM

Proposal opportunity: NASA Lunar Science Institute

On June 2, 2008, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA) Science Mission Directorate (SMD), in cooperation with the
Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (ESMD), is releasing a
Cooperative Agreement Notice (NNH08ZDA008C) soliciting proposals for
the NASA Lunar Science Institute (NLSI). Proposers will be required
to clearly articulate an innovative, interdisciplinary, lunar
research program, together with plans to advance the full scope of
NLSI objectives as defined in the Institute's Mission Statement (see
NLSI website at http://lunarscience.arc.nasa.gov ). Proposals may
address science of the Moon, on the Moon, and from the Moon,
including objectives that meet NASA's future lunar exploration needs.
NASA anticipates making $8-10M per year available for this selection,
leading to 5 to 7 awards at least one of which will be focused on
exploration objectives. Awards will be for 4 years duration.

Participation is open to all categories of organizations (domestic
and non-U.S.), including industry, educational institutions,
not-for-profit organizations, Federally Funded Research and
Development Centers, NASA Centers, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and
other Government agencies. Upon its release date, this Cooperative
Agreement Notice will be available electronically from
http://nspires.nasaprs.com/ (select "Solicitations" then select "Open
Solicitations" then select "NNH08ZDA008C").

Notices of Intent (NOIs) are due June 27, 2008, and proposals are due
August 29, 2008.

Additional programmatic information can be obtained from: Dr. David
Morrison, Interim Director, NASA Lunar Science Institute, Ames
Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035; Tel: [phone]; email:
[e-mail].

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: bobad
Date: 01 Jun 08 - 11:07 AM

A Tiny Fruit That Tricks the Tongue

Joe Fornabaio for The New York Times

ARRIE DASHOW dropped a large dollop of lemon sorbet into a glass of Guinness, stirred, drank and proclaimed that it tasted like a "chocolate shake."

HOW'S IT DO THAT? Franz Aliquo, who calls himself Supreme Commander, right, supplied miracle berries grown by Curtis Mozie, left, to party-goers in Long Island City, Queens, last weekend.

Those who attended sampled the red berries then tasted foods, including cheese, beer and brussels sprouts, finding the flavors transformed. Beer can taste like chocolate, lemons like candy. Mr. Aliquo says he holds the parties to "turn on a bunch of people's taste buds."

Nearby, Yuka Yoneda tilted her head back as her boyfriend, Albert Yuen, drizzled Tabasco sauce onto her tongue. She swallowed and considered the flavor: "Doughnut glaze, hot doughnut glaze!"

They were among 40 or so people who were tasting under the influence of a small red berry called miracle fruit at a rooftop party in Long Island City, Queens, last Friday night. The berry rewires the way the palate perceives sour flavors for an hour or so, rendering lemons as sweet as candy.

The host was Franz Aliquo, 32, a lawyer who styles himself Supreme Commander (Supreme for short) when he's presiding over what he calls "flavor tripping parties." Mr. Aliquo greeted new arrivals and took their $15 entrance fees. In return, he handed each one a single berry from his jacket pocket.

"You pop it in your mouth and scrape the pulp off the seed, swirl it around and hold it in your mouth for about a minute," he said. "Then you're ready to go." He ushered his guests to a table piled with citrus wedges, cheeses, Brussels sprouts, mustard, vinegars, pickles, dark beers, strawberries and cheap tequila, which Mr. Aliquo promised would now taste like top-shelf Patrón.

The miracle fruit, Synsepalum dulcificum, is native to West Africa and has been known to Westerners since the 18th century. The cause of the reaction is a protein called miraculin, which binds with the taste buds and acts as a sweetness inducer when it comes in contact with acids, according to a scientist who has studied the fruit, Linda Bartoshuk at the University of Florida's Center for Smell and Taste. Dr. Bartoshuk said she did not know of any dangers associated with eating miracle fruit.

......the best way to encounter the fruit is in a group. "You need other people to benchmark the experience," he said. At his first party, a small gathering at his apartment in January, guests murmured with delight as they tasted citrus wedges and goat cheese. Then things got trippy.

"You kept hearing 'oh, oh, oh,' " he said, and then the guests became "literally like wild animals, tearing apart everything on the table."

"It was like no holds barred in terms of what people would try to eat, so they opened my fridge and started downing Tabasco and maple syrup," he said.......

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/28/dining/28flavor.html?_r=3&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 08:03 PM

umans can see into the future, says a cognitive scientist. It's nothing like the alleged predictive powers of Nostradamus, but we do get a glimpse of events one-tenth of a second before they occur.

And the mechanism behind that can also explain why we are tricked by optical illusions.

Researcher Mark Changizi of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York says it starts with a neural lag that most everyone experiences while awake. When light hits your retina, about one-tenth of a second goes by before the brain translates the signal into a visual perception of the world.

Scientists already knew about the lag, yet they have debated over exactly how we compensate, with one school of thought proposing our motor system somehow modifies our movements to offset the delay.

Changizi now says it's our visual system that has evolved to compensate for neural delays, generating images of what will occur one-tenth of a second into the future. That foresight keeps our view of the world in the present. It gives you enough heads up to catch a fly ball (instead of getting socked in the face) and maneuver smoothly through a crowd. His research on this topic is detailed in the May/June issue of the journal Cognitive Science,

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 12:34 PM

bobad.

To buy your own miracle berry plant see Logee.com

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jun 08 - 10:07 AM

"As far as anyone can tell, the bdelloid rotifers are ancient asexuals: they appear to have been living entirely without sex for more than 85 million years. And each time we learn more details of their lifestyle, the wackier it becomes.

Evolving to live without sex is easy; all sorts of organisms do it the whole time. For example: aphids, weevils, snails, water fleas, nematode worms, scorpions, even the occasional lizard, have all been known to evolve asexuality. Instead of reproducing via eggs and sperm, asexuals can reproduce in any number of ways. For instance, some bud off a piece of themselves; the piece grows into a whole new animal. The bdelloids, like many other asexuals, reproduce by means of eggs that don't need to be fertilized.
No, evolving asexuality isn't the hard part. The hard part is making an evolutionary success of it."

From this charming article by Olivia Judson, charming as well.,

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jun 08 - 05:26 PM

Scientists find new 'quasiparticles'

Weizmann Institute physicists have demonstrated, for the first time, the existence of 'quasiparticles' with one quarter the charge of an electron. This finding could be a first step toward creating exotic types of quantum computers that might be powerful, yet highly stable.

Fractional electron charges were first predicted over 20 years ago under conditions existing in the so-called quantum Hall effect, and were found by the Weizmann group some ten years ago.

Although electrons are indivisible, if they are confined to a two-dimensional layer inside a semiconductor, chilled down to a fraction of a degree above absolute zero and exposed to a strong magnetic field that is perpendicular to the layer, they effectively behave as independent particles, called quasiparticles, with charges smaller than that of an electron. But until now, these charges had always been fractions with odd denominators: one third of an electron, one fifth, etc.

The experiment done by research student Merav Dolev in Prof. Moty Heiblum's group, in collaboration with Drs. Vladimir Umansky and Diana Mahalu, and Prof. Ady Stern, all of the Condensed Matter Physics Department, owes the finding of quarter-charge quasiparticles to an extremely precise setup and unique material properties: The gallium arsenide material they produced for the semiconductor was some of the purest in the world.

The scientists tuned the electron density in the two-dimensional layer Ð in which about three billion electrons were confined in the space of a square millimeter Ð such that there were five electrons for every two magnetic field fluxes. The device they created is shaped like a flattened hourglass, with a narrow 'waist' in the middle that allows only a small number of charge-carrying particles to pass through at a time.

The 'shot noise' produced when some passed through and others bounced back caused fluctuations in the current that are proportional to the passing charges, thus allowing the scientists to accurately measure the quasiparticles' charge.

Quarter-charge quasiparticles should act quite differently from odd fractionally charged particles, and this is why they have been sought as the basis of the theoretical 'topographical quantum computer.' When particles such as electrons, photons, or even those with odd fractional charges change places with one another, there is little overall effect. In contrast, quarter-charge particle exchanges might weave a 'braid' that preserves information on the particles' history.

To be useful for topologically-based quantum computers, the quarter-charge particles must be shown to have 'non-Abelian' properties Ð that is the order of the braiding must be significant. These subtle properties are extremely difficult to observe. Heiblum and his team are now working on devising experimental setups to test for these properties.

Source: Weizmann Institute of Science

This news is brought to you by PhysOrg.com

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jun 08 - 11:33 PM

New Scientists News Service, 3 June:

Kicking Pluto out of the planet club was nothing compared to this. An astronomer is calling for demoting two entire arms of our galaxy, after they failed to turn up in a sensitive new map of the Milky Way's stars.

Astronomers have long believed that our galaxy possesses four spiral arms, since radio observations show concentrations of gas that trace such a spiral structure.

But now, two of the Milky Way's arms have failed to turn up in a sensitive new survey that used the Spitzer Space Telescope to map the distribution of millions of stars. Spitzer is well-suited to mapping the galaxy's stars because its infrared vision can pierce through the dust that obscures stars at optical wavelengths of light.

Astronomer Robert Benjamin of the University of Wisconsin in Whitewater, US, says these two arms, called Sagittarius and Norma, may be mostly concentrations of gas, perhaps sprinkled with pockets of young stars.

By contrast, the other two arms, called Scutum-Centaurus and Perseus, appear rich not only in gas, but in stars both young and old. "These major arms . . . could be the things that would really stand out if you were looking at the Milky Way galaxy from Andromeda [a nearby galaxy]," Benjamin says.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 05 Jun 08 - 02:39 PM

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - A happily married couple in northern India got the shock of their lives when they learnt they had divorced 10 years ago, the Times of India reported on Tuesday.

Meena Verma, a mother of two children, tried to file a case against her in-laws for violence, only to be told by a court in Haryana state that she had been divorced for a decade.

Her husband Virender told the Times of India his brother, a lawyer, had apparently forged the divorce a decade earlier, when the couple were contemplating making a similar complaint.

"It seems the divorce was doctored to defeat Meena's possible complaint," he said.

The couple filed a petition accusing Virender's brother, Surinder Verma, and four associates, of forgery. Surinder denied the accusation.

(Reporting by Bappa Majumdar; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 05 Jun 08 - 03:36 PM

(06-05) 12:28 PDT SAQQARA, Egypt (AP) --

Egyptian archaeologists have uncovered the "missing pyramid" of a pharaoh and a ceremonial procession road where high priests carried mummified remains of sacred bulls, Egypt's antiquities chief said Thursday.

Zahi Hawass said the pyramid — of which only the base remains — is believed to be that of King Menkauhor, an obscure pharaoh who ruled for only eight years more than 4,000 years ago.

In 1842, German archaeologist Karl Richard Lepsius mentioned Menkauhor's pyramid among his finds at Saqqara, calling it the "Headless Pyramid" because its top was missing, Hawass said.

But the desert sands covered Lepsius' discovery, and no archaeologist since was able to find it.

"We have filled the gap of the missing pyramid," Hawass told reporters on a tour of the discoveries at Saqqara, the necropolis and burial site of the rulers of ancient Memphis, the capital of Egypt's Old Kingdom, south of Cairo.

Only the pyramid's base — or the superstructure as archeologists call it — was found after a 25-foot-high mound of sand was removed over the past year and a half by Hawass' team.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jun 08 - 02:41 AM

The CMB is relic radiation that fills the entire Universe and is regarded as the most conclusive evidence for the Big Bang.

Although this microwave background is mostly smooth, the Cobe satellite in 1992 discovered small fluctuations that were believed to be the seeds from which the galaxy clusters we see in today's Universe grew.

Dr Adrienne Erickcek, and colleagues from the California Institute for Technology (Caltech), now believes these fluctuations contain hints that our Universe "bubbled off" from a previous one.

Their data comes from Nasa's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), which has been studying the CMB since its launch in 2001.
Their model suggests that new universes could be created spontaneously from apparently empty space. From inside the parent universe, the event would be surprisingly unspectacular.

Arrow of time

Describing the team's work at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in St Louis, Missouri, co-author Professor Sean Carroll explained that "a universe could form inside this room and weÕd never know".

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jun 08 - 11:28 PM

At noon, it was black as night. It was May 19, 1780 and some people in New England thought judgment day was at hand. Accounts of that day, which became known as 'New England's Dark Day,' include mentions of midday meals by candlelight, night birds coming out to sing, flowers folding their petals,and strange behavior from animals. The mystery of this day has been solved by researchers at the University of Missouri who say evidence from tree rings reveals massive wildfires as the likely cause, one of several theories proposed after the event, but dismissed as 'simple and absurd.'

"The patterns in tree rings tell a story," said Erin McMurry, research assistant in the MU College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources Tree Ring Laboratory. "We think of tree rings as ecological artifacts. We know how to date the rings and create a chronology, so we can tell when there has been a fire or a drought occurred and unlock the history the tree has been holding for years."

Limited ability for long-distance communication prevented colonists from knowing the cause of the darkness. It was dark in Maine and along the southern coast of New England with the greatest intensity occurring in northeast Massachusetts, southern New Hampshire and southwest Maine. In the midst of the Revolutionary War, Gen. George Washington noted the dark day in his diary while he was in New Jersey.

Nearly 230 years later, MU researchers combined written accounts and fire scar evidence to determine that the dark day was caused by massive wildfires burning in Canada.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 10:38 AM

One of the most famous quotes from Mensagem is the first line from O Infante (belonging to the second Part), which is Deus quer, o homem sonha, a obra nasce (which translates roughly to "God wants, man dreams, the deed is born"). That means 'Only by God's will man does', a full comprehension of man's subjection to God's wealth. Another well-known quote from Mensagem is the first line from Ulysses, "O mito é o nada que é tudo" (a possible translation is "The myth is the nothing that is all"). This poem refers Ulysses, king of Ithaca, as Lisbon's founder (recalling an ancient Greek myth).

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 10 Jun 08 - 10:10 AM

From its diminutive lavender flowers to its straggly windblown stalks, there is nothing about the beach weed known as the Great Lakes sea rocket to suggest that it might be any sort of a botanical wonder.

Yet scientists have found evidence that the sea rocket is able to do something that no other plant has ever been shown to do.

The sea rocket, researchers report, can distinguish between plants that are related to it and those that are not. And not only does this plant recognize its kin, but it also gives them preferential treatment.

If the sea rocket detects unrelated plants growing in the ground with it, the plant aggressively sprouts nutrient-grabbing roots. But if it detects family, it politely restrains itself.

The finding is a surprise, even a bit of a shock, in part because most animals have not even been shown to have the ability to recognize relatives, despite the huge advantages in doing so.

If an individual can identify kin, it can help them, an evolutionarily sensible act because relatives share some genes. The same discriminating organism could likewise ramp up nasty behavior against unrelated individuals with which it is most sensible to be in claws- or perhaps thorns-bared competition.

"I'm just amazed at what we've found," said Susan A. Dudley, an evolutionary plant ecologist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, who carried out the study with a graduate student, Amanda L. File.

"Plants," Dr. Dudley said, "have a secret social life."

Since the research on sea rockets was published in August in Biology Letters, a journal of the United Kingdom's national academy of science, Dr. Dudley and colleagues have found evidence that three other plant species can also recognize relatives.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 10 Jun 08 - 10:28 AM

"...It was the directory for world's first commercial phone system, Volume 1, No. 1, published in New Haven by the Connecticut District Telephone Company in November 1878, future issues to be published "from time to time, as the nature of the service requires."

Two things struck me. As an aging veteran of the current rewiring of the human condition, I wondered whether there might be lessons from that first great rewiring of our collective nervous system.

Another was a shock of recognition — that people were already talking on the phone a year before Einstein was born. In fact, just two years later Einstein's father went into the nascent business himself. Einstein grew up among the rudiments of phones and other electrical devices like magnets and coils, from which he drew part of the inspiration for relativity. It would not be until 1897, after people had already made fortunes exploiting electricity, that the English scientist J. J. Thomson discovered what it actually was: the flow of tiny negatively charged corpuscles of matter called electrons.

The New Haven switchboard opened in January 1878, only two years after Alexander Graham Bell, in nearby Boston, spoke the immortal words "Mr. Watson, come here. I want you." It was the first commercial system that allowed many customers to connect with one another, for $22 a year, payable in advance...."

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 10 Jun 08 - 11:05 AM

NEW YORK (AP) — A Manhattan skyscraper that is home to The New York Times became the site of twin daredevil stunts Thursday, with two men scaling the 52-story office tower within a matter of hours.

The first man, Alain Robert, unfurled a banner as he climbed that said "Global warming kills more people than a 9/11 every week." He was arrested when he made it to the top.

Hours later, a second man ascended the building — a stunt that drew the attention of thousands of onlookers, along with TV cameras that captured the drama in real time. Crowds on the street pressed against police barricades to watch, and people clapped and cheered for the climber while snapping pictures on their cellphones.

He, too, was taken into custody as he reached the top. Police said he was charged with reckless endangerment, criminal trespass and disorderly conduct and was awaiting arraignment overnight.

"Only in New York. This is why I live in New York," said 29-year-old Emily Perschetz, who watched the second climber for about 20 minutes.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Jun 08 - 12:06 PM

What will more Americans do this year in numbers greater than all Americans that will get cancer, get married and graduate college collectively?











answer:


declare bankruptcy.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 11 Jun 08 - 10:34 PM

"In a bizarre revelation, the judge who is presiding over the Isaacs obscenity trial in Los Angeles was found to have sexually explicit material on a publicly-accessible website. Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, acknowledged that he had posted the materials, but says he believed the site to be for personal storage only, and not accessible to the public (though he does acknowledge sharing some of the material with friends). The files included images of masturbation, public sex, contortionist sex, a transsexual striptease, a photo of naked women on all fours painted to look like cows, and a video of a half-dressed man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal. The latter two are especially ironic in that the trial involves the distribution of allegedly obscene sexual fetish videos depicting bestiality, among other things, by Ira Isaacs, an L.A. filmmaker."
Stanislav_J continues: "The judge has blocked public access to the site (putting up a graphic that reads, 'Ain't nothin' here Ñ y'all best be movin' on, compadre').

Isaacs' defense had welcomed the assignment of Kozinski to the case because of his long record of defending the First Amendment, but the startling news about his website (the revelation of which seems to have been interestingly timed to coincide with today's scheduled opening arguments) now have many folks calling for him to be removed from the case. There is no indication that any of the images on Kozinski's site would be considered obscene or illegal. But certainly, one has to believe that most would consider this at the very least to represent a serious conflict of interest given the nature of the trial."

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jun 08 - 10:31 AM

Rare Turtle Returns to Texas



For the first time since the 1930's, federal biologists confirmed that a leatherback sea turtle has nested on a Texas beach, at the Padre Island National Seashore near Corpus Christi.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 14 Jun 08 - 12:20 AM

Posted: June 13, 2008

Silver, gold, tin and oxygen: The chemical elements most frequently cited in music


(Nanowerk News) Here is our 'Slow News Friday' story for this week: Do the chemical elements, Mendeleev or the Periodic Table play any role in the world of music? Here are a few preliminary notes for an answer to that question, maybe just the tip of an iceberg. Some suggestions are offered on music that is worth listening to, although some of the works commented on may require more of a good sense of humour than musical sensibility from the reader. No word yet on nanoparticles in popular music, though.
The four chemical elements cited most often in musical songs and compositions are, in this order, silver, gold, tin and oxygen, followed by copper and iron, according to a study carried out by Santiago çlvarez, professor at the School of Chemistry of the University of Barcelona, and recently published in New Journal of Chemistry ("Music of the elements").

The music of the elements

To quantify the presence of these elements in the music market, çlvarez analysed the English and Spanish names of each element in a musical cyber store. The chemist explained to SINC that the results may include some redundancies due to different versions of a same piece - especially in classical music - and that some elements appear overvalued since they have several meanings (such as radio or indio in Spanish, lead in English or mercury (mercurio) in both languages). In any case the final aim of the study was not so much a comprehensive statistical analysis. but rather to "build bridges between science and music".

In general, with the exception of oxygen, the elements that appear most frequently in musical compositions are the metals seen most often over the history of humanity and daily life, comments çlvarez, "and silver and gold share the pedestal of popular imagination". Both appear in songs not only because they are components of a large variety of objects, but also because they are the symbol of wealth, luxury and power or due to the metaphors referring to their properties such as metallic shine.
Numerous classical composers have referred to gold or silver in their works such as Bach (Gold und Ophir ist zu schlecht, aria from the cantata BWV 64), Beethoven (Hat man nicht auch Gold beineben, from Fidelio), Dvorçk (O Silver Moon, from Rusalka), or Wagner, in his opera Rhinegold, whose plot revolves around a golden ring and power and the accompanying curse. In the field of pop and rock music there is an abundance of groups that mention these precious metals in their songs: the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Genesis, Elvis Presley, The Rolling Stones, Sting, Spandau Ballet, Status Quo and many more.

Another metal with a significant musical presence is tin, which Krzysztof Penderecki uses as an instrument in his work Fluoresences together with pieces of wood and glass, a siren and a typewriter. It is also found in March of the Tin Soldiers by Tchaikovsky although perhaps the piece most related to this metal is Tin Roof Blues interpreted by legendary jazz figures such as Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, Sidney Bechet, Kid Ory or Tommy Dorsey. Curiously, in English the expression "tin earÓ is used to refer to people who have little ear for music, observes çlvarez. ...

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 14 Jun 08 - 02:49 AM

Chips ahoy? Food company beams Doritos ad into outer space

Snack foodÐmaker Frito-Lay apparently believes there may be a market in outer space for its Doritos corn chips. The company announced this week that it plans to beam a 30-second video spot to a solar system 42 light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major, within which are the seven stars that make up the Big Dipper. The target system consists of two known gas-giant planets orbiting a star quite close in size to our own, meaning that in principle there might be habitable worlds there. The ad, called "Tribe," which shows a gaggle of Doritos dancing around a jar of salsa, was the winning entry in the Doritos Broadcast Project, a U.K. contest to make a video conveying everyday life for inquisitive extraterrestrials. Only thing: How will ETs know Earthlings aren't a bunch of dancing little edible triangles?

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 14 Jun 08 - 10:34 AM

"Watching the Fred Thompson candidacy alone was worth the price of admission Ñ sort of like a version of ÒWaiting for GodotÓ in which Godot actually shows up and turns out to be a mailman who enjoys recounting the plots of ÒLaw & OrderÓ episodes in great detail."

Gail Collins

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jun 08 - 10:47 AM

"I became a journalist because I wanted to tell stories. To find stories you must give yourself to the moment. Time must weigh on you, its lulls, accelerations and silences. The life within, the deeper story, does not yield itself with ease."

Roger Cohen, NYT

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jun 08 - 02:25 PM

Condom wars for U.S. presidential rivals
The U.S. presidential campaign is in full swing and it is not only the politicians who are looking to get the benefit out of it. A local company has started selling condoms dedicated to the candidates, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain, and the contraceptives have rapidly become a big hit on the internet.
The condoms are decorated with portraits of the candidates and rephrased slogans of their presidential campaigns.

The Obama condom carries the slogan "Use with Good Judgment", while the McCain version says "Old but Not Expired."

According to the information on the pack, the Obama condoms could become a real salvation for buyers in the hard period the U.S. is facing.

"These are uncertain times," according to the leaflet. "The economy's a ball-buster and the surge went flaccid! But now there are Obama condoms, for a change you can believe in!"

And the users of the McCain equivalent can be sure that they are "battle tested, strong and durable, for those occasions when you just need to switch your position!" They are also "a perfect gift for grandpa!"

The contraceptives are meant to be collectors' items, but the produces say they are perfectly real and the equal of other condoms sold in the U.S.
The reactions of the candidates as well as the sales results are not yet known.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Jun 08 - 03:33 PM

Questions/ammunition for journalists...


I would like to know the number of foreclosures there have been under Republican regiemes vs. Democratic.


What is the total amount of money owed to workers in the form of unfunded pensions and health care.

What is the amount of money states have been ordered to support in the form of unfunded mandates - and by whom.


How large would our city on Mars be if we had not wasted money on the Korean, Viet Nam and Iraq wars.

How many foreskins would it take to give McCain a complete new skin makeover.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jun 08 - 08:16 PM

"A massive switch from coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear power plants to solar power plants could supply 69 percent of the U.S.Õs electricity and 35 percent of its total energy by 2050.
A vast area of photovoltaic cells would have to be erected in the Southwest. Excess daytime energy would be stored as compressed air in underground caverns to be tapped during nighttime hours.
Large solar concentrator power plants would be built as well.
A new direct-current power transmission backbone would deliver solar electricity across the country.
But $420 billion in subsidies from 2011 to 2050 would be required to fund the infrastructure and make it cost-competitive."

A Solar Grand Plan, Scientific American

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jun 08 - 10:22 PM

The Phoenix lander has uncovered a patch of what may be ice on the border of a polygon-shaped section of soil in Mars's northern plains.
The lander's robotic arm uncovered the white substance after further excavating sites called Dodo and Baby Bear to create one large trench. The patch sits at the edge of a polygon, a geological formation created by the seasonal expansion and shrinkage of ice in the Martian soil.
It is too early to say whether the bright area is made of ice or salt. But over the coming days, the lander's cameras will periodically snap pictures of the area to see if the exposed layer changes.
If the layer is an isolated chunk of ice, exposure to the Sun will likely cause the patch to shrink as it turns into water vapour, a process called sublimation. An isolated chunk of ice may hint that liquid water once pooled in the trough between polygons and then froze.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jun 08 - 11:01 PM

On June 4 a 37-year-old woman from San Francisco - Erika La Tour Eiffel, nŽe Erika La Tour - married the Eiffel Tower, in a ceremony attended by 12 friends. Of course, in many ways this is quite a melancholy fact. La Tour Eiffel had an unhappy childhood, cannot form trusting romantic relationships with other human beings and feels safe in investing love only in things that cannot possibly hurt her. Unless, obviously, there is some deep structural damage, exacerbated by a minor earth tremor - in which case a piece of the Eiffel Tower could shear off, and hurt the new Mrs La Tour Eiffel quite a bit.

La Tour Eiffel's unresolved emotional state is reflected in the buildings she falls in love with. Before she was with the Eiffel Tower, she was in love with the Berlin Wall - scarcely the warm, supportive, stable structure of one's dreams. Second-time around, and one wouldn't want to bet the house on her current relationship lasting either. Despite its venerability, the Eiffel Tower is still out on the town, seven nights a week, like a big, iron Peter Stringfellow. It has women crawling all over it. It's hard to see how the new Mrs La Tour Eiffel will get the commitment she craves. Her fatal weakness seems to be for high-profile, trophy buildings, the architectural equivalent of rock stars. I can't help but feel that, as she matures, she will find she has nothing in common with these global icons. My warm hope is that she will eventually give up on these high (in the case of the Eiffel Tower 968ft, or 300m)-profile buildings, and find a more low-key, sustainable happiness with a nearby municipal building - a library, maybe. I hope that they get to settle down, experience true love and maybe raise a couple of small outhouses together.

(London Times columnist Caitlin Moran)

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 07:55 PM

""Researchers have found a way to generate the shortest-ever flash of light Ð 80 attoseconds (billionths of a billionth of a second) long.
Such flashes have already been used to capture an image of a laser pulse too short to be "photographed" before (see right).
The light pulses are produced by firing longer, but still very short laser pulses into a cloud of neon gas. The laser gives a kick of energy to the neon atoms, which then release this energy in the form of brief pulses of extreme ultraviolet light.
The trigger pulses fired at the neon cloud are themselves only 2.5 femtoseconds, billionths of a millionth of a second, long, says team member Eleftherios Goulielmakis at the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany."

Beautiful picture of result here.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 07:57 PM

"European researchers said on Monday they discovered a batch of three "super-Earths" orbiting a nearby star, and two other solar systems with small planets as well.
They said their findings, presented at a conference in France, suggest that Earth-like planets may be very common.
"Does every single star harbour planets and, if yes, how many?" asked Michel Mayor of Switzerland's Geneva Observatory. "We may not yet know the answer, but we are making huge progress towards it," Mayor said in a statement.
The trio of planets orbit a star slightly less massive than our Sun, 42 light years away towards the southern constellations Doradus and Pictor.
The planets are bigger than Earth Ð one is 4.2 times the mass, one is 6.7 times and the third is 9.4 times. And they circle their star on faster, closer orbits than Earth, which takes 365 days to orbit the Sun Ð one whizzes around in just 4 days, one takes 10 days and the slowest takes 20 days."


A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 11:08 PM

There is water ice on Mars

within reach of the Mars Phoenix Lander,

NASA scientists announced Thursday.

Photographic evidence settles the debate over the nature of the white material seen in photographs sent back by the craft. As seen in lower left of this image, chunks of the ice sublimed (changed directly from solid to gas) over the course of four days, after the lander's digging exposed them.

"It must be ice," said the Phoenix Lander's lead investigator, Peter Smith. "These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it's ice."

The confirmation that water ice exists in the area directly surrounding the lander is big and good news for the Martian mission. NASA's stated goal for the Mars Phoenix was to find exactly this -- water ice -- and then analyze it. With the latest news, the first step is accomplished. All that's left now is to get the water into the Phoenix's instruments, a task which has occasionally proven more difficult than anticipated.
Still, this is the best opportunity that humanity has ever had to analyze extraterrestrial water in any form. That had the Phoenix Lander's persona fired up.
"Are you ready to celebrate? Well, get ready: We have ICE!!!!! Yes, ICE, *WATER ICE* on Mars! w00t!!! Best day ever!!" the Mars Phoenix Lander tweeted at about 5:15 pm.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 11:16 PM

Tech savvy British teens have found an innovative -- and illegal -- way to beat summer heat using Google Earth.

Teens scour through the aerial photographs available in the satellite imaging program to locate houses with pools. Once a target has been identified, the revelers use social networking sites like Bebo and Facebook to coordinate illicit pool parties when homeowners are away, according to U.K tech publication The Register.

Local law enforcement told a London entertainment guide that that the "pool-crashing" craze was discovered after multiple pool owners awoke up to find pools full of teens partying or came home from work to a backyard full of beer cans.

Owners of poolside property worry that the craze could spread as the weather gets hotter and homeowners prepare to leave for vacation.

Earlier this year, a water fight organized on Facebook caused thousands of dollars in damage at a public garden in the city of Leeds.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jun 08 - 12:12 AM

Whoops:

"
(CNN) -- What was believed to be the sixth human foot to wash up on the shores of British Columbia in recent months proved to be a fake, authorities said Thursday.

A "skeletonized animal paw" had been placed in a sock and athletic shoe that was packed with dried seaweed, the British Columbia Coroners Service announced.

The hoax was uncovered as the coroner's office began DNA and other forensic tests on the supposed foot in an attempt to identify the person to whom it belonged.

The coroners service, a forensic pathologist and an anthropologist all examined the shoe and remains before declaring it a fake.

"It is the position of BCCS that this type of hoax is reprehensible and very disrespectful to the families of missing persons," authorities said in a written statement."

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jun 08 - 12:26 AM

With the museum's full consent, the Tseycum tribe will be repatriating the remains of 55 of their ancestors to Canada this week. On Monday morning, in a quiet first-floor auditorium away from the museum's crowds, tribe members performed an emotionally charged private ceremony over the 15 sturdy plastic boxes that contained the remains. The ceremony lasted two and a half hours, and the tribe members and elders from related tribes prayed, spoke, wept and sang, saying they wanted to soothe their ancestors' spirits and prepare them for a return trip from a journey that, the tribe leaders say, should never have happened at all.

"And then we said, 'Now we're going to take you home,' " Chief Jacks said, moments after the ceremony ended. "These people we are taking here have knowledge, respect, wisdom," he added. "We live by today's society, but our history walks with us."

The remains, guessed to be at least 2,000 years old, have been at the museum for about 100 years but have almost certainly never been on display, said Steve Reichl, a museum spokesman. The museum has repatriated other remains to Canada at least once before, in 2002, according to Reichl, and remains have also been returned numerous times to American Indians.

Reichl said the museum worked to streamline the Tseycums' trip. "The end result was a successful visit," he said, "and a moving ceremony."

For the Tseycum people, Monday's events marked a singular culmination of years of painstaking, and painful, detective work.

The tribe's quest to reclaim their ancestors began seven years ago, when Chief Jacks's wife, Cora Jacks, found documents and papers relaying the life story of a 19th- and early 20th-century archaeologist, Harlan Ingersoll Smith. Jacks said she learned that Smith had robbed the graves of Tseycum ancestors, who were buried on Vancouver Island under giant boulders, and sold them to major American museums, and most likely others worldwide.

Mrs. Jacks grew nearly obsessed with tracking down the remains, Chief Jacks said, poring over books, researching government archives and spending late nights searching for clues online.

Smith's selling price, said Chief Jacks, was $5 a skull, $10 for a body.

"He dug our people up and sold them to museums on all four corners of the earth," said Chief Jacks, 63, who is hoping that the Canadian government will help defray the costs of the trip. "What happened to 'rest in peace'?"

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jun 08 - 06:01 PM

Random' searches of passengers on Metrolink

Random searches of passengers and their belongings will begin next week on Metrolink commuter trains, the agency announced Thursday. Passengers got the news via a flier left on train seats.

Sheriff's deputies will be setting up random screening stations at random times. "Access to the station platform will be restricted; passengers must pass through the checkpoint to gain access to the station platform," stated the flier.

The release goes on to say that some passengers will be selected from those lines and have their baggage searched. Anyone who refuses to be searched won't be allowed to get on the train. Deputies are looking for "explosives" or other "dangerous items."

Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell told me this morning that the searches are not in response to any threats that have been made against trains.

[SNIP]

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 01:40 PM

In 2006, for the first time in U.S. history, a majority of all births to women under 30 Ñ 50.4 percent Ñ were out of wedlock. Nearly 80 percent of births among black women were out of wedlock.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jun 08 - 03:41 AM

The average life expectancy in 1900 was 47 years. Today it is 77, and rising.
The infant-mortality rate has dropped from 1 in 10 to 1 in 150.
ÒPoorÓ Americans today have routine access to a quality of housing, food, health care, consumer products, entertainment, communications and transportation that even the Vanderbilts, Carnegies and Rockefellers could only dream of.
A farmer a century ago could produce only one-hundredth of what his counterpart is capable of growing and harvesting today.
In the 19th century, almost all teenagers toiled in factories or fields. Now, 9 in 10 attend high school.
TodayÕs Americans have three times more leisure time than their great-grandparents did.
The price of food relative to wages has plummeted: In the early part of this century the average American had to work two hours to earn enough to purchase a chicken, compared with 20 minutes today.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jun 08 - 03:47 AM

If the entire world population of 6.7 billion lived in the United States, the country's density would be about 700 people per square kilometer, according to the New York-based Center for Migration Studies.

The Netherlands has a density of about 400 people per square kilometer. Other cities with a high number of people per square kilometer include Singapore (6,500), Hong Kong (6,600), Macao (18,500), and Monaco (22,000).

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 23 Jun 08 - 03:50 AM

The price of food relative to wages has plummeted: In the early part of this century the average American had to work two hours to earn enough to purchase a chicken, compared with 20 minutes today.

But median wage is less than average, and at current Kansas minimum wage, it's still about an hour and forty minutes

(at a discount market)

((before taxes)).

And lots of jobs are exempt even from that minimum.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 23 Jun 08 - 01:56 PM

Although a majority of Americans say religion is very important to them, nearly three-quarters of them say they believe that many faiths besides their own can lead to salvation, according to a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

The report, titled U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, reveals a broad trend toward tolerance and an ability among many Americans to hold beliefs that might contradict the doctrines of their professed faiths.

For example, 70 percent of Americans affiliated with a religion or denomination said they agreed that "many religions can lead to eternal life," including majorities among Protestants and Catholics. Among evangelical Christians, 57 percent agreed with the statement, and among Catholics, 79 percent did.

Among minority faiths, more than 80 percent of Jews, Hindus and Buddhists agreed with the statement, and more than half of Muslims did.

The findings seem to undercut the conventional wisdom that the more religiously committed people are, the more intolerant they are, scholars who reviewed the survey said.

"It's not that Americans don't believe in anything," said Michael Lindsay, assistant director of the Center on Race, Religion and Urban Life at Rice University. "It's that we believe in everything. We aren't religious purists or dogmatists."

The survey confirms findings from previous studies that the most religiously and politically conservative Americans are those who attend worship services most frequently, and that for them, the battles against abortion and gay rights remain touchstone issues.

"At least at the time of the surveys in 2007, cultural issues played a role in political affiliation," and economic issues less so, said John C. Green, an author of the report and a senior fellow on religion and American politics at Pew. "It suggests that the efforts of Democrats to peel away Republican and conservative voters based on economic issues face a real limit because of the role these cultural issues play."

The survey, which is based on telephone interviews with more than 35,000 Americans from May 8 to Aug. 13, 2007, is the second installment of a broad assessment Pew has undertaken of trends and characteristics of the country's religious life. The first part of the report, published in February, depicted a fluid and diverse national religious life marked by people moving among denominations and faiths.

According to that report, more than a quarter of adult Americans have left the faith of their childhood to join another religion or no religion. Every denomination and religion lost and gained members, but the survey indicated that the group that had the greatest net gain was the unaffiliated. Sixteen percent of American adults say they are not part of any organized faith, which makes the unaffiliated the country's fourth-largest "religious group."

The new report sheds light on the beliefs of the unaffiliated. Like the overwhelming majority of Americans, 70 percent of the unaffiliated said they believed in God, including one of every five people who identified themselves as atheist and more than half of those who identified as agnostic.

"What does atheist mean? It may mean they don't believe in God, or it could be that they are hostile to organized religion," Mr. Green said. "A lot of these unaffiliated people, by some measures, are fairly religious, and then there are those who are affiliated with a religion but don't believe in God and identify instead with history or holidays or communities."

The most significant contradictory belief the survey reveals has to do with salvation.

Previous surveys have shown that Americans think a majority of their countrymen and women will go to heaven, and that the circle is wide, embracing minorities like Jews, Muslims and atheists. But the Pew survey goes further, showing that such views are held by those within major branches of Christianity and minority faiths, too.

Scholars said such tolerance could stem in part from the greater diversity of American society: that there are more people of minority faiths or no faith and that "it is hard to hold a strongly sectarian view when you work together and your kids play soccer together," Mr. Lindsay said. ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/us/24religion.html?hp

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 23 Jun 08 - 06:01 PM

Good point, John.

This from Nature.com, a major change of subject:

"The quantum internet

H. J. Kimble1


Quantum networks provide opportunities and challenges across a range of intellectual and technical frontiers, including quantum computation, communication and metrology. The realization of quantum networks composed of many nodes and channels requires new scientific capabilities for generating and characterizing quantum coherence and entanglement. Fundamental to this endeavour are quantum interconnects, which convert quantum states from one physical system to those of another in a reversible manner. Such quantum connectivity in networks can be achieved by the optical interactions of single photons and atoms, allowing the distribution of entanglement across the network and the teleportation of quantum states between nodes."

Coincidentally, from Arxiv.org:

Quantum Physics
System Design for a Long-Line Quantum Repeater

Rodney Van Meter, Thaddeus D. Ladd, W.J. Munro, Kae Nemoto
(Submitted on 29 May 2007 (v1), last revised 7 May 2008 (this version, v2))
We present a new control algorithm and system design for a network of quantum repeaters, and outline the end-to-end protocol architecture. Such a network will create long-distance quantum states, supporting quantum key distribution as well as distributed quantum computation. Quantum repeaters improve the reduction of quantum-communication throughput with distance from exponential to polynomial. Because a quantum state cannot be copied, a quantum repeater is not a signal amplifier, but rather executes algorithms for quantum teleportation in conjunction with a specialized type of quantum error correction called purification to raise the fidelity of the quantum states. We introduce our banded purification scheme, which is especially effective when the fidelity of coupled qubits is low, improving the prospects for experimental realization of such systems. The resulting throughput is calculated via detailed simulations of a long line composed of shorter hops. Our algorithmic improvements increase throughput by a factor of up to fifty compared to earlier approaches, for a broad range of physical characteristics.
Comments:        12 pages, 13 figures. v2 includes one new graph, modest corrections to some others, and significantly improved presentation. to appear in IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking
Subjects:        Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
Cite as:        arXiv:0705.4128v2 [quant-ph]

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 24 Jun 08 - 08:00 AM

Delving into a 3,000-year-old mystery using astronomical clues in Homer's "The Odyssey," researchers said Monday they have dated one of the most heralded events of Western literature: Odysseus' slaughter of his wife's suitors upon his return from the Trojan War.

According to the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the wily hero who devised the Trojan Horse hefted his mighty bow on April 16, 1178 BC, and executed the unruly crowd who had taken over his home and was trying to force his wife into marriage.

The finding leaves many perennial questions unanswered, such as whether the events portrayed actually occurred or whether the blind poet Homer was the author of the tale.

(LA Times)


Wal,at least they got the date right.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 24 Jun 08 - 09:58 PM

n the autumn of 1703, an unusual anxiety was shewn to enforce the laws against the importation of provisions from Ireland and from England. Mr Patrick Ogilvie of Cairns, a brother of the Lord Chancellor, Earl of Seafleld, was commissioned to guard the coasts between the Sound of Mull and Dumfries, and one Cant of Thurston to protect the east coast between Leith and Berwick, with suitable allowances and powers. It happened soon after that an Irish skipper, named Hyndman, appeared with a vessel of seventy tons, full of Irish meal, in Lamlash Bay, and was imme diately pounced upon by Ogilvie. It was in vain that he represented himself as driven there by force of weather on a voyage from Derry to Belfast: in spite of all his pleadings, which were urged with an air of great sincerity, his vessel was condemned.

Soon after, a Scottish ship, sailing under the conduct of William Currie to Londonderry, was seized by the Irish authorities by way of reprisal for HyndmanÕs vessel. The Scottish Privy Council (February 15, 1704) sent a remonstrance to the Duke of Ormond, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, setting forth this act as Ôan abuse visibly to the breach of the good correspondence that ought to be kept betwixt her majestyÕs kingdoms.Õ How the matter ended does not appear; but the whole story, as detailed in the record of the Privy Council, gives a striking idea of the difficulties, incon veniences, and losses which nations then incurred through that falsest of principles which subordinates the interests of the com munity to those of some special class, or group of individuals.

Ogilvie was allowed forty foot-soldiers and twenty dragoons to assist him in his task; but we may judge of the difficulty of executing such rules from the fact stated by him in a petition, that, during the interval of five weeks, while these troops were absent at a review in the centre of the kingdom, he got a list of as many as a hundred boats which had taken that opportunity of landing from Ireland with victual. Indeed, he said that, without a regular independent company, it was impossible to prevent this traffic from going on.Õ...

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 25 Jun 08 - 11:42 PM

SAN DIEGO Ð A team of San Diego scientists has moved embryonic stem cell research a step closer to helping repair the brains of stroke victims and people with diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

Advertisement

The team, led by the Burnham Institute's Stuart Lipton, figured out how to coax the embryonic stem cells of mice to become nerve cells that, when transplanted into a mouse brain damaged by stroke, link themselves to the existing network of neurons.
The mice showed therapeutic improvement, and none of them developed tumors, which has been a problem associated with the implantation of stem cells, according to the article published today in The Journal of Neuroscience.

Lipton said that since submitting the article several months ago, his team has been able to achieve the same result with human embryonic stem cells implanted in mice.

Conditions such as stroke, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's disease destroy brain cells, causing speech and memory loss and other debilitating consequences. In theory, transplanting neuronal brain cells could restore at least some brain function, just as heart transplants restore blood flow.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 26 Jun 08 - 10:47 AM

ScienceDaily (June 26, 2008) — Wellcome Trust scientists have identified a key region of the brain which encourages us to be adventurous. The region, located in a primitive area of the brain, is activated when we choose unfamiliar options, suggesting an evolutionary advantage for sampling the unknown. It may also explain why re-branding of familiar products encourages to pick them off the supermarket shelves.


In an experiment carried out at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL (University College London), volunteers were shown a selection of images, which they had already been familiarised with. Each card had a unique probability of reward attached to it and over the course of the experiment, the volunteers would be able to work out which selection would provide the highest rewards. However, when unfamiliar images were introduced, the researchers found that volunteers were more likely to take a chance and select one of these options than continue with their familiar -- and arguably safer -- option.

Using fMRI scanners, which measure blood flow in the brain to highlight which areas are most active, Dr Bianca Wittmann and colleagues showed that when the subjects selected an unfamiliar option, an area of the brain known as the ventral striatum lit up, indicating that it was more active. The ventral striatum is in one of the evolutionarily primitive regions of the brain, suggesting that the process can be advantageous and will be shared by many animals.

"Seeking new and unfamiliar experiences is a fundamental behavioural tendency in humans and animals," says Dr Wittmann. "It makes sense to try new options as they may prove advantageous in the long run. For example, a monkey who chooses to deviate from its diet of bananas, even if this involves moving to an unfamiliar part of the forest and eating a new type of food, may find its diet enriched and more nutritious."

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 02:58 AM

Polar scientists reveal dramatic new evidence of climate change
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Friday, 27 June 2008


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It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year.

The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice, making it possible to reach the Pole sailing in a boat through open water, would be one of the most dramatic Ð and worrying Ð examples of the impact of global warming on the planet. Scientists say the ice at 90 degrees north may well have melted away by the summer.

"From the viewpoint of science, the North Pole is just another point on the globe, but symbolically it is hugely important. There is supposed to be ice at the North Pole, not open water," said Mark Serreze of the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado.

If it happens, it raises the prospect of the Arctic nations being able to exploit the valuable oil and mineral deposits below these a bed which have until now been impossible to extract because of the thick sea ice above.

Seasoned polar scientists believe the chances of a totally icefreeNorth Pole this summer are greater than 50:50 because the normally thick ice formed over many years at the Pole has been blown away and replaced by hugeswathes of thinner ice formed over a single year.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 03:14 AM

For a small planet, Mars sure knows how to go big. It's about half as large as Earth, but it's got the hugest volcano in the solar system in the Arizona-sized Olympus Mons and the grandest of all canyons in the 7 kilometer-deep Vallis Marineris. Now it can add its coolest, most-braggable title: the Biggest Impact Crater in the Solar System. In a new study out in Nature, scientists have shown that Mars was probably hit by an asteroid the size of the Moon sometime in its early history, which left a crater the size of the planet's entire northern hemisphere.